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How Do You Get Work Done?
canuck asks: "I am currently a university student and have a major problem: being able to simply sit down and get work done. I can set aside a day to work, whether it is homework or contract work, and I will be lucky to have an hour done before dinner time. The only time I can actually get solid work done seems to be after midnight under a lot of pressure (ie. a deadline the next day). This has led to too many 5 a.m. nights and turning down too many invitations to go out only to stay in and accomplish nothing. I have stopped playing games, stopped watching TV, tried reading the Seven Habits book, and am currently seeing what classical music does for me. I don't think I have ADHD, and I am not sure what else to try. If it is computer work, the web is always a click away, and I can always escape to my imagination. I know many of you will have had the same problem. Can anyone please give advice on how to overcome this problem, be it a little trick, medication, or anything else?"
canuck-
I'm a university student as well and as you can see (I'm sitting on slashdot) I have some of the same issues. However there have been some shining examples of good behavior on my part, and here are what I think are some of the apparent factors/causes:
a. social proof, i.e. studying with a bunch of people
b. meaning, a meaningful purpose
c. distractions, lack thereof, i.e. lack of other things to think about
Examples with causes:
-studying in the basement of the library (a, c)
-studying for imminent test or other grade-altering material (b, and possibly a)
-studying for something that will be applicable to some upcoming event i.e. work (b, and possibly a)
-studying for something that is less dreadful than what I should *really* be studying (b, c)
-studying at a coffeehouse, with ambient-type music like classical or trance (a, c)
*****
Other notes:
Speaking of coffee, I highly recommend coffee for the few hours that I seem to get out of it, really studying.
Something else I've found useful to keep my mind focused is to bring a notepad which I designate as a "worry pad." When I think of something, like, gee, I should do laundry or pay bills, I just write it on the pad so that I can focus on studying.
I find it helpful to like what I am studying. If I currently don't like it, I try to find a way to like it. If I can't find a way to like it, I begin to consider studying something else....
Or maybe this problem of not being able to study is not a problem as a gift. Perhaps studying as much as some others at your school is not your idea of fun and you can try pursuing something that seems more fun to you (without studying).
I use rewards for my self, as stupid as it sounds.
Like today, I have to write some thankyou cards, and fill out some rebate forms. So, I promised my self that after I do that, I'm gonna go to walmart and spend 20$ on something fun and/or stupid!
I'm ACing this just so it isn't linked to my name. Apologies.
Exercise, like the first poster suggested, didn't do squat for me. Of course, each person is different, but you sound a lot like the way I used to be. A *lot* alike.
What worked for me? Wellbutrin and/or Effexor. I wasn't depressed, and I really wasn't an ADD type. Although I kind of thought I might have been ADD.
All of the sudden, I went from someone who was capable of doing things to someone who actually WAS doing things. I was balancing my freakin' checkbook, which I hadn't done in ages because it was too much trouble. I was getting stuff done, getting things knocked out of the way. It was incredible.
I personally think it was overstimulation. Computer games, television, the Internet, college, everything was so exciting. To sit down and do something that I was capable of but just had little interest in was really next to impossible for some reason. I just couldn't lock my brain in on it.
The other thing to do is make lists of small segments, if you procrastinate. This will force you to work more steadily. Yes I'm a procrastinator too, and this works.
The last thing to do is get out of the house and go somewhere where there are NO distractions. Not Borders or Barnes and Nobles, but the local law school library, where nothing interests you and everybody else is working hard.
My 2 cents worth.
..........FULL STOP.
No, really. It helps.
It also helps to "remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy", Exodus 20:8. Whether it be Saturday, Sunday or some other day, I believe the important thing is to have the day once a week and to actually share time with God on that day, and to refrain from working on that day. Very important for the peace of mind and concentration. (I have found this very different from just "remember to rest".)
Remember, the Law is for our own good, not because God just happened to decide it should be so.
I have a major problem: being able to simply sit down and get work done. Can anyone please give advice on how to overcome this problem?
Simple. Get caught.
There's nothing more motivating than getting a warning about your performance, particularly if it's coupled with the boss making subtle remarks that prove they know exactly how much surfing you've been doing.
Turned my work around, I can tell you.
That is probably your biggest problem. When in school, I never got work done at home, too many distractions! The best thing to do if you want to get some serious studying done, go to the library or form a study group (yeah, nerdy as hell but think of the nice big salary you're working towards in a few years).
Think of school as a job, a shitty paying job but a job nonetheless, and make set hours every day that you'll dedicate to work. Sneak in lunchtimes and breaks as well or you'll burn out in a couple of hours. It'll get you into a routine that'll ultimately end up in that nice piece of paper that's your ticket to big bucks (hopefully!).
It doesn't get any better in the real world either, I have a hard time getting motivated even though I know I'm getting paid for it!
After I got a subscription to an ISP back in 1997, I noticed that my productivity went down with regards to music composition and production. It was quite a shock to me since I'd always been able to come up with new things almost every day. Then, at one point, I was reading the online diary of one of my favorite musicians (Ryuichi Sakamoto) and he noted that ever since he started using the web, he'd become less productive. He suggested that it was a combination of the distraction it provides, the wealth of information that exists as it relates to your own personal interests and the "six degrees" nature of most web content that leads you from one of your interests to another. His personal approach was to schedule time that he was allowed to use the web. After reading this, I applied this approach to my own life by completely removing the ability of my audio production system to do anything on the Internet. It can only share files and mount other shares on my LAN, but that's it. This could be done in a number of ways. So, if you have more than one machine, I'd suggest that you dedicate one to being your development machine and leave off any ability to access the web. It's worked for me, although I will say, that if you catch yourself spending less time at the "development" machine, you might want to check your web usage vs. your productivity.
Un-news
I saw my school psychiatrist about the same sort of behavior, thinking I had ADD, and the guy told me I was probably just depressed.
This was a shock to me, because I had never thought that I could be "depressed", but the more I thought about what he said the more it made sense.
Imagine that we have a certain threshold of happiness, emotional comfort, whatever, that we try to maintain. Any time that we engage in some behavior that isn't rewarding, we (as simple dumb animals) quickly go back to more rewarding behavior. This is the problem. When you're borderline depressed, you're just barely
staying happy, and you do whatever you can in a very short-term-thinking kind of way to maintain that happiness.
After I started with the meds, I found it easier to get into doing things that were frustrating or boring long enough to finish them. Finishing those things became a reward.
So, Canuck may need meds that will allow him to feel comfortable experimenting with new behavioral patterns long enough to find ones that will work better for him.
- if you're struggling within yourself, you're lost. Learn to recognise this mental state (of internal struggle) and drop it immediately.
- instead, look with detachment at the 'lazy' half of the struggle. The more clearly you see it, the less power it will have.
- once the laziness is clearly seen, visualise yourself beginning the task, in detail. You can do this lying in bed or anywhere, but the important thing is to get over the initial hump, and sort out a clear picture of the first steps you need to take.
It's this startup-barrier that's the real problem, but reducing it to a manageable size is just a question of thinking it out clearly (not sweating, exercising, or promising rewards or threats).
Actually, you may want to get yourself tested for ADHD, the symptems you are describing are pretty much the diagnoses for ADD/ADHD.
I can relate to sitting down to work, and at the end of a 12-16 hour day only having 1/2 of work done. It's gotten to the point that I am now spending most of my time working on getting a diagnoses and the problem fixed.
The way ADHD works is a bit insidious. Without an understanding of how it works it's easy to label yourself as not working hard enought, etc. My first realization that I might have a problem was when I took Wellbutrin for the first time, it became easier to make decisions, ie betweeen making a decision to do something and actually getting started took about 2 hours with the Wellbutrin it was instant, ie decide to go to the store, grab keys and jump in the car.
Anyway, I suggest getting yourself tested for ADHD by an expert. Testing should take approx 6-8 hours for complete testing.
/* TODO: Spawn child process, interest child in technology, have child write a new sig */
I want to share my own, pathetic example with you, though. Most of my life has been plagued by severe procrastination, since around middle school, I think. High school was horrible--I can remember spending two days creating a chemistry lab notebook that I was supposed to have spent a whole semester on, just to give one instance.
In college, I eventually got worse and worse until I stopped attending classes (because I was so far behind) and failed an entire semester.
I worked in a restaurant full time for a year, and got re-admitted to school. I talked to a counselor and kind of worked things out, so I thought. Still, I had to continue working to support myself while going to classes part-time, so it took about 8 years to graduate.
I worked for a couple of years, which was no problem, then went back to school for my master's. Still okay.
Then I entered a Ph.D. program at Yale and it started again. Really bad. I never finished my dissertation because of the time wasted. There were other factors involved beyond my control, and to be honest I don't think I would have stayed in my field if I had completed the dissertation, but still the responsibility lies with me.
So now I'm unemployed (by choice, followed my girl to another state, leaving a good job where I was becoming miserable because I procrastinated at the parts of the job I didn't enjoy) and I'm trying to use the down time to do some writing, something I've always wanted to do but didn't have the courage.
I've got great starts on two projects that are wonderful ideas...essentially I'm halfway through them, and I'm stuck. Like a wall.
What's the lesson? I've bought every decent anti-procrastination book on the market, read them and tried to implement the suggestions. But I even procrastinate about that! I've done therapy, both group and individual. It was useful in many ways, but here I am, still stuck.
I think it may be chemical/biological. It is very, very difficult for me to concentrate on one thing for more than, say, fifteen minutes. Even reading has become harder, and I love to read more than anything else. Once I get a job I'm considering Prozac or something to see if it can take the edge off my tendency to be distracted.
I'm not lazy. I'm a hard worker and wherever I work I'm quickly valued for my contributions and innovations. In school I was regularly in the top 10% of the brightest students, except when it came time to follow through and produce. And still, I know that I've wasted years of my life. They're gone and nothing can bring them back.
So, I urge you to find out what the problem is and fix it, or try to fix it. Because the clock is ticking.
Works for me:
here
So, what are you doing when you aren't working? Are you sure that you aren't just futzing around in order to avoid getting down to business?
When I was in college, a friend and I used to pull all-nighters to study for exams. A third friend, Dave, usually joined us, but insisted on staying in his own room. Invariably, Dave would wander over around 5:00 a.m. and we'd give him some money to go uptown to a bakery that opened at dawn to buy breakfast. After our coffee and croissants, all three of us would walk to campus and take our exams. My friend and I usually did well, and Dave usually did poorly. He'd whine, "But I stayed up all night, too!"
Well, turns out that Dave spent all night wastng his time. He'd spend so much time "getting ready to study" that he never studied. In other words, a classic case of lack of discipline and avoidance.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Just a little one, but large enough to calm the nerves and drown out background thoughts and noise.
;)
If your in the USA, be careful I think they still chop off hands for posession.
May not be ADD. May be Bipolarity. I myself am Bipolar II and get stuck in my manic phase for months on end.
The only way to overcome? Discipline. Kick yourself in the head and just do it. Once you get started, it's hard to stop.
Also, an afternoon toke sometimes helps to focus your energies and totally zone. No I'm not advocating getting wasted... I'm saying a puff can relax you and help you to totally zone on your task once you get started. Before you know it, 5 hours have passed and you got 2 weeks of work done.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
I read in some book (I think "Good to Great" by Collins) something that I find very useful. It's called the "Not To Do List". Instead of a To-Do list, which sometimes gets crowded with obvious large tasks or minutia -- make a real TO-DO list along with a NOT-TO-DO list.
On really busy days, my NOT-TO-DO list includes Slashdot, believe it or not. It also includes checking the weather, stock quotes, instant messaging, snacking, staring out the office windows for cute gals, etc.
If you actually tracked how much time you spend goofing off, distracting yourself, you'd see how valuable the NOT-TO-DO list is to boost your productivity.
If you're worried about not getting work done, I'm betting that you're also thinking to yourself about not only this work, but asking yourself what if you don't finish this piece, and thinking about what else needs to get done as well.
I know, because I do it myself.
Concentration is a skill. It's not something that comes instantly to everyone, it's something that needs to be practiced. And it's not hard to practice it, either, but it does take some disipline.
First, learn to clear your thoughts of extraneous stuff. I do this by mostly telling myself that, first, if I worry about all the rest of the crap I have to do, I'm not only not going to get *this* done, I'm not going to get *any* of it done, and I'm no better off than when I started -- so, Part-of-me-that-worries, shut up and let me get some work done, so you can worry about something else. It's kind of a zen, clear-your-mind of all thoughts moment.
Second, try the following exercises::
Practice Sitting Quietly: Sit down for an half-an-hour a day, at your desk. No distractions, no extra stuff to work on, and just one project to finish. Take a quick, zen-cleansing breath, and don't think about everything else you have to do. (Don't panic, if what you have to get done takes more than that time, I'm just saying you have to *sit* for that time.)
Complete Something Every Day: do something that you can complete in one day, and do one of every day. If it's a book, slice it up into chapters or 10 pages or whatever. If it's one calculus set, use that. Do that every day, at the same time, once a day. It give some sense of accomplishment, gets you practiced at doing something on a regular basis.
(Note, I got these from Daniel Pinkwater's book Fishwhistle, but they seem to help.)
Finally, also do these:
Exercise: I know it's been said, but exercise exhausts the muscles, gets the blood flowing, can heighten concentration, and is generally good for you. It may seem like a waste of time, but it gives back in concentration what it takes in time; so if it's 4 hours of worrying over something, or 1 hour of exercise and 3 hours of working, which is more productive?
Sleep: Do it. Regularly. It helps with concentration, sleepy people can't concentrate.
Give it a shot. See if it works for you. If not, try the following things which have worked for friends of mine:
Earmuffs: Seriously. My brother cannot concentrate unless there's no noise about. You can find these for about $5-$10 at any hardware store; some even fold up for carrying. They block out sound like earplugs (not a bad idea either) and allow you to not hear any sounds around you.
Tai Chi and other Martial Arts: These heavily emphasize concentration, so it may be that they do you more good by both getting you exercise and by helping you practice concentration.
Good luck!
Whatever you do... don't read this.
In the best and worst of times, I encourage myself by stipulating rewards for valuable work. Ie. if I finish such-and-such by a certain time, I'll play Diablo II for an hour. The trick, of course, with Diablo II is to stop playing ;)
I have found this trick to be a valuable exercise in motivation. Perhaps someone else may, too.
Cheers
I think you misunderstand the term ADHD. The word "Hyperactive" is not in reference to a "hyper" person, it is in reference to attention. They changed the name from ADD to ADHD to recognize "hyper-focusing", which is most certainly NOT a deficit of attention.
Hyper-focusing is when a person with ADHD is completely engrossed in something to the point where doing or thinking about anything else is EXTREMELY difficult, even "painful".
Sometimes my girlfriend will walk in and want to tell me something and I will be working (and "hyper-focusing"), and she will ask me a basic question (or tell a joke) and all I can offer her is a blank stare. It is like she is speaking a different language--it just doesn't make sense. It's really weird. (And it gets me in trouble sometimes!)
As a person who has had ADHD for his entire life, I know that I was not a "hyper" kid, but I most certainly did "hyper-focus". My brain constantly switches channels, and sometimes it gets stuck on a channel and just won't move. The times where the channel doesn't change is just as significant a symptom as when the channel keeps changing at random. That is why it is called ADHD instead of ADD.
— darco
When you go to bed at night, review what you have to do tomorrow. Then visualize yourself finishing all of the tasks AND feeling good about it. Repeat the same visualization before you get up in the morning. If done well (takes practice) getting up in the morning is like Christmas morning every day of the year. You'll find yourself hitting the ground running, getting the jobs done. The procrastinating takes care of itself. Experiencing feeling good about finishing is absolutlely essential. Reuse the same feelings you've had from previous projects. Then, in your mind, transfer the same sense of accomplishment to the next task. It works.
Heavily agree with above posts.
In addition, to get your circadian cycle in sync (which gives you more energy) you can do these things:
1. It's more important to wake up at the same time. You can't always force yourself to sleep, but your body will entrain if you force yourself to get up at the same time each morning. That means NO sleeping in on weekends.
2. Expose yourself to light first thing in the morning. Preferably, I would suggest going outside but you can also get specific lights that simulate sunlight.
3. When you excerise, the best time to do that is several hours before going to bed.
Programmers tend to have delayed-phase sleep syndrome (which means we like to stay up late).
People who are delayed-phase, tend to migrate toward those jobs they can do at late hours and don't have to wake up at a specific time to do them.
Block port 80 on your computer if you have ADHD or ADD like myself and use the lap computers at school and a nice soda as a reward when you are done. If you do really well go buy some ice cream or nacho's or something to chill while you read slashdot.
If you fuck up then make a habit not to do this. This will actually rewire your brain to work in order to recieve a reward. Nature designed your brains this way to reward us for hunting food.
This is classic Pavlov pyhyscology at its finest.
http://saveie6.com/
I don't think the problem here is lack of energy, but rather procrastination. People procrastinate for various reasons. Whether you absolutely hate what you have to do, or whether you are sure that whatever you come up with will not be acceptable in quality, at which point you blow it off til 1AM the night before, and blame subpar results on not giving it much effort in the first place.
A better approach would be trying to analyze why exactly the author of this Ask Slashdot is pushing work off til the last possible moment.
This book might help him get a firmer grip on understanding the exact reason. It has a chapter on procrastination and seems to address exactly what he described.
Good luck.
I agree that a lot of this is in your mind. It's like your outlook on life: if you want to be happy, decide that you will see the good things in people and that your glass will be half full, instead of criticising everyone and being pessimistic about every situation. No-one else can make that decision for you.
Lots and lots of people experience this sort of thing while at university. Yes, I did too. I was well known for the unusual hours I kept, and my lack of attendance at lectures where I wasn't convinced about the material and/or the presentation, something else I'm sure many here can relate to. But while I don't want to knock those with a genuine problem, most of the time it's just laziness if we're honest about it. Trying to pin something like laziness on a condition like ADD is a typical cop-out of someone lazy; several such conditions are themselves of dubious scientific validity and believed by many in the business simply to be people making excuses.
Of course, if the laziness is caused by a lack of motivation or a negative outlook, sometimes deciding you want to overcome it is a good start, but doesn't help much with actually overcoming it. Then I find breaking the task down to be helpful. If something seems overwhelming, it's probably because you're trying to jump in at the deep end.
For example, maybe you need to write a complicated piece of code that might wind up hundreds of lines long, and you know what you want it to do but aren't really clear in your mind about how you're going to do it. In that case, try just writing the pseudocode algorithm in comments in your function. If it's going to take several functions, that's OK, write pseudocode for the main one first and then the others as it becomes convenient. Don't worry about details at first, or following any rigorous structure, just figure out the main idea. You can always add more details later if they're helpful. Once you're basically happy with the pseudocode version, start hacking.
Similarly, if you're anything like me, you wind up building up household chores horribly. You know that putting that load of washing through will only take five minutes to put stuff in the machine and another five minutes to take it out again, but somehow it's all too much effort. When this sort of thing happens, I make a list of all the little things I need to do: clothes washing, washing up, hoovering, cleaning in the kitchen, cutting the grass, food shopping, filing bank statements, etc. Then I just pick the items off, one by one. I'll put the washing in, so I've got something started, then wash up or do the garden while it's going, and so on, making best use of the time. When you actually get down to it, you can do a lot of stuff in just a couple of hours, and most individual things only take a few minutes. As with the coding problem, it's just getting over the mental barrier that says it's too much hard work to get started, and (for me, at least) the way to do it is to break a big, unsurmountable problem down into little, manageable ones.
Somehow, finding the motivation to break the big problem down is never as hard as finding the motivation to just attack it without really knowing how. Then solving the little problems is much easier, and once I've started, I've got a plan and know what I need to do next, so I can keep going without losing concentration. I can write hundreds of lines of good code a day like this, or do every piece of housework there is in a single afternoon. Try it, maybe it'll work for you too. :-)
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
When I was in college I found I did my best work if I woke up at 4 am and did my work until around 9 am. There are very little distractions at that time usually all your friends are a sleep or finishing their last minute work. There is nothing good on TV. And the environment is usually is very quit. At first getting up at that time is tough but after a while it gets easier.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Break down a large task into small steps. Next to each task, in the first column, predict how difficult that task will be on a scale from 0-100%. Leave a column blank, which will be the percentage of the actual difficulty after you do that step. Next column is predicting how satisfying it will be, 0-100%, and then one more blank column used to record the actual satisfaction after the step. (It's a cognitive therapy technique.) IANAD. I'd be curious if anyone actually tries this, how it works out for them.
I know someone who has a candle with an uncommon scent that he lights whenever he does serious work. It's actually a pretty good strategy - the scent is a reminder to work, and since smell is the sense that has the most effect on us, it's probably one of the best reminders to work work work that you can have.
Granted, it's not a big help until you start associating the smell with work, but I'd give it a try.
The other option is red bull, but after drinking those regularly, you start to feel like crap.
I've had those days after you've been working non-stop 12-16hr days, and you get to the point where you're less productive than before.
My dad gave me a book recently on the connections between adrenaline and stress. Basically, it talks about handling stress so you don't let it get out of hand, as stress triggers adrenaline, which affects your sleep patterns and causes you to make snap decisions without thinking things out or being creative.
I've had depressive fits where I haven't left my place for weeks at a time, but now that I reflect on it, they were all triggered by times of high stress. So now, before I get to far in, I try to relax. Unfortunately, saturday morning cartoons have really sucked in the past few years, so I don't have that 3-4 hrs of relaxation per week.
If you're not getting stuff done, set a timer, wait, relax for an hour or so, then press back in on it. Personally, I find that I do some of my best work near 6am.... no matter if I got up early to do it [working right after I get up, or until I've been up all night and start to get tired]. Tired is actually a sign of being relaxed, as if you're pumping with adrenaline, you won't fall asleep.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
When I was a guitar major in college and had a rigorous night job, I had heard of this practice regimen put together by a well-known jazz guitarist named Howard Roberts (Hal Leonard Publications). He called it the "Superchops" program. You practiced an hour a day, six days a week for twenty weeks. It basically went something like this:
:)
1.) Clear your work area of all things not pertaining to the lesson.
2.) Make a ten-minute recording of what you were going to play over.
3.) Stop. Make quick mental notes of what you are about to do.
4.) Play over the recording.
5.) Break. Two minutes. Put the guitar down, stand up and stretch, etc.
6.) Repeat #4 and #5 two more times. That's about it. The POINT is that an hour every day of something is much more beneficial than cramming a bunch of hours into one day, and provided you are not SUPER tired from what you were doing that day, your current physical condition shouldn't be a problem-exercise is good, of course
Try setting up a daily work regimen of whatever you are doing that has REALISTIC goals for daily achievement. It worked for me.
NOW ABOUT ADD/ADHD...and NO this is NOT FLAMEBAIT!
Ritalin is a class two drug with side effects similar to cocaine. Frankly, no kid anywhere should be ingesting it, and neither should you.
My question is (and this is REALLY going to piss off some people), does ADD/ADHD REALLY EXIST? Is it an officially recognized disorder by the CDC or some other government body, or well-respected independent body? Or is this a massive bullshit campaign?
It is going to take a lot of convincing to prove to me that we are not just making excuses about why our kids can't concentrate in school, yet they can come home and concentrate on kicking my ass on Half-Life. Find me the links that show me that ADD/ADHD actually and truthfully exists. Better still, post decent links that outline BOTH sides of the debate.
Once something's been approved by the government, it's no longer immoral. - Reverend Lovejoy
Chalupa
this is a healthy habbit he is going through in fact i went through it and am still going through it and loving every minute of it, now then what your suffering from is PROCRASTINATION, also known as lazyiness with a sequence, first you get the work, then you analyze it, then you figure out how long to set it off, then you dink around to the last possible minute and then finish it. and wala, its done by the dead line and you had much fun, however new comers to the field of procrastination might not know its an art form, like painting, and naked modeling, its very percise if you want to be a lazy fat ass all day but still acomplish the goals at hand. now then it seems something inside of you is trying to tune your art of procratination like a child trys to tune in on singing or such, all you must remember is that your a damn newb and you will suck at it at first, but with time, slacking, porn, and games with a little work at the end, your life with be most lame and enjoyable rewarding. please note that between the time you get the task and you finish it, this is called anaylizing. so you must not stray from the task to far, this invovles going to the movies, what will they think of you if you hop in your car with 4 babes and go see THE HULK? thats right, YOUR A LAZY ASS, but no you can avoid this by being grumpy, ahh yes loosing at quake matches and then taking your anger out on co works is WONDERFUL stress relaxation and it perfectly okay becuase you have a hard task that your working on! so keep working at it, personally i do EVERYTHING that doesn't benifit me in about 5 minutes at the VERY last minute, and am very succesful at it. so remember if you can't do it at the last minute then it isn't worth your time and you'll pull more hair then good. GOOD LUCK padawon procratinator!
We arranged tri-weekly study sessions, where we'd go over the class notes to get a better grip on what the lunatic Russian algorithmatician was talking about, and then tackle the homework.
Now the reason this helps, is that it creates accountability. Letting yourself down is much easier than letting someone else down. If you're studying alone and you ditch to go play Warcraft, you don't feel so bad. On the other hand, if you know two other people are sitting there, expecting you to participate, it's much, much, much harder to just take off for frivolous reasons (and in college, there are millions of frivolous reasons to give up in the middle of a problem set). Similarly, the time spent is more productive (usually), because you're not as likely to sit there and pick your belly button if someone is sitting across from you, working with you, periodically looking at you, and asking questions.
Questions. Those are important too. Discussion and dialogue are great hooks for keeping your mind on the task at hand. There were plenty of times when noone in the group had any idea what the correct interpretations of our professor's babblings were. We were dumbfounded at some of the things he said, and joked about it, but that's the point. Had I been by myself, I would have dropped that subject, and moved on to the next line in my class-notes. To this end, I think it's a good idea to try and find people who are approximately about as smart as you are. People who are significantly smarter are not likely to want to spend as much time as you would want in study sessions (a generalization, but I did notice that on the occasions when someone much brighter joined the group, they'd take off early). Similarly, keep stupid folks out of the group, because they will hold you back, lingering at length on concepts you don't feel like you need to spend time on. Unless they're hot, in which case, you make sure you grab that back room in the library and stay there all damn night until she can speak in binary.
...and after all that, years and years after graduating from college, I was finally diagnosed with adult ADD. Hah!
Maybe your so-called unconcious mind is actually doing you a favor, outside of your awareness. Isn't that what it's supposed to do?
Try this. Fill in the blanks...
Or try this...
1. Pretend that the behavior you don't like is actually a good thing
2. Via courageous introspection, enumerate the hidden benefits of the behavior
3. Refactor the benefit: Find new, better, faster ways to acquire those same benefits, but don't interfere with other needs in your life (a job, self-expression, blah, blah)
Give yourself some credit. "Self-sabotage" is prima facie evidence of internal conflict. And this gay little process I've described is a great conflict-discovery tool.
I dont think its about time management, its about how you spend your time. You dont have to be organized, when I solve a problem I solve the complicated part first and then work on the easy part.
In school I read chapter after chapter just going right through the books staying a couple chapters ahead of the class, I then re-read or scan the chapter the test is based on and I pass the test.
Repeat that again, going chapter by chapter and then go backwards and rescan chapters when its test time but just read as much as you can at a time. Dont be precise, dont be like (I'm going to read exactly 2 chapters), instead be like (I'm going to read at LEAST 2 chapters)
Then just read until your eyes get tired, if you read 4 chapters, good, take a break; make a few posts on slashdot, play quake or some game, then open up the book again. Repeat this process for the entire day just switching from task to task, going back and forth when a task becomes so boring you cannot stand to do it anymore.
I can read for a good couple hours, maybe 3 tops, then I cant stand to turn another page and I come online. Sometimes talking to friends helps to get your mind off of it, so call a friend.
Other than that, just try to always be doing some kinda work, even when I post on slashdot I have about 5-6 webpages open where I'm doing research, I never just do a single task, when slashdot gets boring I go back to the research picking up exactly where I left off.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
This is a problem you'll be facing all your life; but good planning will help you to be highly productive. Good luck!
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Here's a technique that helps me immensely: I keep a small slip of paper and a pen in front of me. I write down the one thing I am supposed to be working on and keep it in front of me. It can be even a very small task like "open project file" which only takes a few seconds. If I keep writing down the next step, then doing it, after a few minutes I "get into the groove" and proceed on automatic pilot without the help of the paper aid.
I've found that my posts don't format quite right w/o a sig.
I managed to graduate from the university but it took a long time. I think my nutrition was bad. I ate too much everything that was bad for the liver.
- Quit drinking coffee
- drink less alcohol
- eat less carbohydrates
Also,
- sleep well
- exercise (you'll learn to like it!)
- get a girl friend and fuck her hard in the morning and in the evening (www.unstoppable-confidence.com, www.fastseduction.com,Google:"double your dating")
- study something that you are really interested in
- change your mental state (NLP)
- think hard every evening for five minutes: "Why am I such an efficient student?" This will start an unconscious process that will change your life! Try getting 2 more reasons every evening. This technique is from book "unstoppable confidence".
If you'll do this all, I guarantee, you'll be a very efficient student!!!
A more substantial risk of ingestion of caffeine is the development of a bleeding ulcer that can, if severe, lead to death.... More likely if the caffeine is taken in concentrated, pill form...
Hey Cliff, I was in the EXACT same situation you were in....EXACT. and if anyone tells you to have more discipline....hearing that over and over is just going to make you feel even worse about yourself, because if you were like me, locking yourself inself in a room with no distrasctions whatsoever led you to daydreaming over your homework. last year, my freshmen year of college, my one friend from down the hall in my dorm gave me a pill of Adderall (he's prescribed it for ADD, so....no he's not a crazy amphetamine drug dealer). now, keep in mind, this drug is WIDELY abused among my age group, and people take it to stay up for days, and to get total energy highs off of it. you see, for people who don't have ADD, it pretty much acts like speed.....it is a stimulent. but for people with ADD, stimulents have a somewhat reverse response on the body....they slow it down. (this is why caffiene never kept me up or did anything for me). When I took this pill.....it totally opened my eyes to the fact that I may have had ADD. I wasn't hyper or crazy or anything as most kids got on it. I totally chilled out at my desk, was able to focus on ANYTHING. I wrote like 4 huge papers thats night, and totally forgot to look at the clock-in-the-corner of my screen while I was so in tune with what I was doing. Every minute went by I got so much work done, and wrote my best paper that whole school year. this night prompted me to go see a psychologist and see if I had ADD. well sure enough, I was diagnosed with ADD (with like a 80% above the median line or something like that). I was on a couple of drugs that didn't work till they found that adderall worked best for me. Now my grades have improved dramatically and I get so much work done. and when I'm done with my school work, the adderall makes me EVEN more into computers and coding. Not that I'm all about drugs here....in fact I've been against this for quite some time. But...it's really working out and my lifestyle has improved because of it. cheers matt
I thought that I had ADD for a while, but then I realized that I only had trouble concentrating when I had to do something I wasn't really interested in. If I was interested in something, I threw my full concentration and conviction at it. Last semester, my computer programming instructor threw us a program that he said would be the "most challenging in the course."
The minute I got back from work that day, I started working on it. I got it half-done and went to sleep. Got back to my dorm the next day and started working on it again, and got it done, debugged and working. Then I submitted it, three weeks before it was due, 2 days after it had been assigned. No one with Attention Deficit Disorder could do that without the aid of medication. I've also spent many late nights at work in the past few weeks getting my university's Internet Tools CD installer done. I was doing marathon AppleScript debugging and beta testing sessions. My only medication was Dr. Pepper and cigarettes. Again, no one with an attention disorder could do this without prescription medication. I don't have attention span problems; I have motivational problems. I have trouble motivating myself to do something that doesn't involve me being in charge or was issued as a direct challenge to me, and I suspect the case with many people who claim to have ADD or ADHD is similar.
1. Quit caffeine.
2. Organize. Get a feel for what the components of a job are.
3. Every time you notice that you have become distracted, stop and go back to what you were doing.
Every.
Time.
It takes a while to get the hang of working straight-through, but it can be done. It's experience, training, and maturity that make the most difference.
Could medication help? Maybe. However, for years, people were telling me I needed treatment for ADD, and I've gotten better. I'm still twitchy, I'm still easily-distracted, but I'm doing just fine now, because I've learned to adapt.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
I often experienced this feeling of being unproductive in cases where the goal of a project (even my own hobby projects) are desireful, but the path to reach them is long and much work. The typical thing to observe on myself then is "just looking at the news", "just checking email", etc.
;-), make some tea and breakfast. By the time I finish its about 9:40 and I spend 20 minutes reading emails and getting news. But from point 10am I start working concentrately until around 14am. Every half an hour I do a 5 minute away-from-computer break.
I overcome this by deciding this day should be a productive day and starting with sort of a ritual: I ensure to get at least 8 to 9 hours of sleep, then at 9am I wake up (yeah, I work from home
This works out nicely and I get a lot of work done. Because I have not broke this matter yet I accepted that the unwanted piece of work are unavoidable anyway (as I have to work on it in the next few hours) and just do it.
hth
'yields false when preceded by its quotation' yields false when preceded by its quotation.
No offense Paradox but I'm reading lots of platitudes - "Quick learner", "less training", "practice learning." Not sure this translates into anything solid given my 20 years of coding in various ways.
I had a recent experience that I found amusing (kind of). I kept reading how employers were looking at "soft skills" now a lot more than the past and how "pure tech" wasn't going to cut it. Recently I wound up hooking up with some head hunter whose client insisted that any potential candidate take exams on Brainbench.com. Fine. I went along. I took an exam they set me up with. I scored 79% on the C++ exam. Not bad since it had been YEARS since I had actively coded in C++ (real stuff like class design, not simple subclasses to handle GUI events).
In my day I would keep up with the ANSI committee and enjoy reading what Scott Meyers et al had to say. (Aside: I just dumped my entire collection of "C++ Report" into the recycle bin)
That was then, this is now.
Turns out, the head hunter's client (who I might work for) had REALLY wanted me to take the Visual C++ Brainbench exam. I thought to myself, "Wow, so much for soft skills if all they are interested in is a number on some exam." Despite having Microsoft on my resume and having a capacity of "Lead Architect" in my last employer it seemed they were looking for some "magic number". I told the head hunter "No thanks" (much to his chagrin) and sent a polite letter to the HR person who sent me the URL for taking the test stating that I didn't think it was a "fit."
Truth is, today I WOULD in fact like to leverage my soft skills more than in the past. These people were looking for a grunt coder. Plain and simple. Been there, done that.
Fed up with the idiotic HR people and the dearth of anything interesting, today I'm selling cars by choice. Hondas specifically.
Let me make things clear, my biggest frustration in tech is the idiotic HR people in various organizations that are the gate keepers. Next come the moronic head hunters. But it's just the nature of the business and a necessary evil, particulary with the limited opportunities nowadays.
When I look at all I've done and what I know... then to have to deal with people who haven't the slightest clue and are simply matching buzzwords, well, it's all quite frustrating, really. Never mind that I transitioned from my last employer in a major way from Windows to the LINUX platform, never mind that I worked at Microsoft and have shrink wrapped software to my credit, never mind that I worked on a source level debugger at one point in time for Motorola... HR people don't understand any of the latter. Nothing.
To all tech people let me just say this, something I am passing along from a high level manager I once heard - "I know you love all that technical minutiae but don't forget about the soft skills." More importantly, since we're in a down time, if you go try something utterly non-tech it may spark surprising changes in how you view the world and yourself.
To give you some food for thought, how many CEOs do you know that were prime time developers? Yeah, Bill Gates might have coded in his day but I can assure you he hasn't done shyt for the last 15+ years. He was a businessman first and that's what succeeds in our society (the social element of the equation). Always has, always will.
Something I've had to learn the hard way...
-M
PS: Oh yeah, I'm the one selling cars that SPAZOID12 up above eludes to.
Mind and body are really one and the same; the split between them is artificial. So changing diet, exercise, etc., will not just improve the physical aspects of attentiveness but also the mental/emotional. I think as you exercise more, quit caffeine, or eat better, you might find that your motivation increases and you may find yourself facing the emotional challenges in your personality in a healthier way.
I have severe ADD and a job that requires me to work independantly and get stuff done. I have been using an egg-timer that I have modified (busted) so that it is too quiet for my coworkers to hear outside of my cube. This keeps the lynch mobs at bay.
I keep a list right next to the timer and when something comes up that needs doing but isn't what is at the top of my list (a distraction), I write it down on the list. Since the egg timer interrupts me every few minutes, I don't find myself pissing away as much time when I do get distrsacted.
Another reason my mind wanders is boredom. I always make sure I switch tasks when the timer rings if I can switch and come back later without losing my place in what I was doing. That way, I am always doing something new and I don't just give up and go read slashdot.
This also helps with procrastination. I find it easier to start on even the most odious tasks if I know that in 10 minutes, I can put it down for a bit and catch up on my email.
Oops.
Yep, that's my problem. Of course, every time I try to unlearn my procrastination, it just gets reinforced. The many times I've put off homework only to have the instructor cancel, change, or work through it just before it is due are some examples. The time I totaled my car 3 months after paying it off, but never got around to reducing the insurance from full coverage to liability is a major one.
The trick is to find a happy medium between the procrastination and getting things done quickly.
I have to agree with this AC. I had a similar problem that had roots in depression. I went on anti-depressive meds for a year, and it was enough to give me time to sort out my behaviors and thoughts, and to form good habits.
Maybe the original poster should see a doctor to see if he has this problem.
<snip>
Bear in mind, I do have ADD (official diagnosis), so your milage may vary.
There's something to be said about that. In fact, it isn't really all that surprising.
Many drugs that are used to treat people with hyperactivity-like disorders result in a calming effect for those folks, but result in making normal people totally bounce off the walls. For some reason, some people's brains react to those sorts of chemicals in the opposite way from the way that a normal brain would react.
120 character sigs suck. Make it 250.
There's a big difference between ADD (or ADHD or whatever) and a general lack of discipline. I've been having problems for my whole life with it, and have just recently been diagnosed. For a long time I figured I just wasn't trying hard enough, or approaching things from the right direction, but after thinking a lot and talking to people, I realized that my problems were rather unusual compared to others.
When talking about a lack of discipline, the problem is getting work done when you're not interested in it. You have to write a program or do a term paper, then you think of going onto the web or playing a game, and you wander off and do that instead. A lot of my friends described having problems with this in college when I would talk about my difficulties.
What I've been experiencing is a little different than this, though. I just couldn't focus on things in general. I'd avoid watching movies because of the effort it would take to keep track of a story for an hour and a half. I'd try to read an article and trail off halfway into it, realizing a few minutes later that I've been sitting there with a magazine, going through the motions of reading, but not absorbing any of it. Lord knows reading an actual book was incredibly difficult. It wasn't that I found other things to do. It was more like I'd sit there trying to focus and blanking out until I either forgot what I was doing completely or got so frustrated I gave myself a migraine. And when I could do focus on something, if someone were to distract me at all, I'd get so startled I'm jump into the air, and get very angry. Sometimes I'd be able to sit down and write a really good term paper, but get an F for it because I wasn't able to read the one page of text that gave the instructions on how it was to be written.
There were other, less specific problems, too. I couldn't clean my room, practically ever, not because I was lazy, but because when I'd try I couldn't pay attention to any specific item apart from the general mess well enough to figure out how to clean it. I'd literally sit there for five or ten minutes looking around trying to figure out what it was that made my room so messy. I couldn't separate the clothes from the soda bottles or the computer equipment in my mind.
Also, as a kid I was really socially awkward. I just couldn't deal with people at all. I had a couple of friends that I would hang out with pretty comfortably, but when I got into a group I would get completely overwhelmed. Looking back on it, I realized that I couldn't process all the sound of different people talking at once. After a certain point, I'd hear them but not really understand anything they were saying. That would definitely make it hard to make friends at parties.
When I got on Wellbutrin (initially for depression) and, more recently, Adderall (I hate the stuff, but it helps), I started noticing large changes. With the Wellbutrin I still had trouble focusing on specific things, but I noticed my confusion went way down. I could deal easily with people, and could pay attention to what was going on around me. That helps a lot when driving. When I started taking the Adderall, I suddenly found it very easy to pay attention to one thing separate from others. I could remember to get my mail or take out the trash. I could separate my clothes and actually do my laundry. I could organize the tasks involved in getting my dishes washed, rather than not eating because I couldn't find a clean plate. I found myself starting to draw more (which I've always loved but never really practiced) because I could actually visualize in my head what I wanted to draw, rather than scribble around until I either had something or I didn't. I actually even sat down and started reading a few of the many books that I've gathered through the years, meaning to read. It's not particularly easy to sit down and write out an organised essay, design a program, or reorganize all the crap in my room, but I can actually sit and think of how I would go about doing it, and even remember
[insert witty quote here]
Actually, last year I went to RedOctane.com and bought to of their ignition 2.0 pads and a copy of DDR (Dance Dance Revolution), after playing DDR once in the arcade. It has made me much more fit and I have noticed a sharp increase in my energy levels and metabolism. It is not monotanous like exercise, and it is a quick 30 min, full-body cardiovascular workout (you must use your entire body to keep yourself balanced). I'd seriously recommend this to anyone, don't worry about looking foolish, once you get good at it you will be quite impressive. If you don't even want to initially invest the money in the pads, go to ddrfreak.com and try to find an arcade near you that has it, and spend one or two dollars to test it out. So far this year, I have gotten about 7 friends addicted to this game. My Computer Science buddies and I at Clemson play it during coding sessions to clear our mind, not to mention it's a good way to reward yourself for hard-work. -Justin Ames
Canuck, I've been in a similar situation to you.
I think the causes are two-fold. Firstly your mind probably isn't functioning as well as it could be. Try reading, meditation, yoga - something to refresh your mind and perhaps bring some inspiration or motivation back into your work. Second, think about your work and what originally motivated you to start it in the first place. Presumably you came up with the idea or design for the game in the first place, so there must have been something personally driving you there. Recapture that mindset and, like some other posters have said, make some initial small steps toward improving the project.
I have had the same problem as you. sometimes worse than others. Typically, the worst times comes when I get some serious burnout. During those times, I can't even read a paragraph and comprehend what I'm reading, but that was an extremely serious burnout.
Often, it's simply a case of 1) really believing in what you are working on, and 2) embracing the task before you to the exclusion of all others.
Many ADD/ADHD and related sufferers have a related "skill" that, unless recognized, is often unutilized. I call it hyper-focus. It is the ability to get so drawn into a situation as to be totally absorbed. Easy examples are TV, games, and the internet. These are passive hyper-focus subjects. Reading is another, less passive one. I have found, through careful practice that this same "skill" can actually be trained as an active skill. Instead of absorbing material, absorb a concept or task with and equal zeal, to the absolute exclusion of all other conscious thought.
It takes practice, but is somewhat like learning how to break over into your second wind as a jogger. If you're not familiar with that, it's the point where you are sooooo wiped that your body tells you you can't go another step but you push until your body just say, "ok, whatever" and it feels like you could run all day. It's a very cool thing. What was pain only moments ago now feels exhilerating and refreshing.
Breaking over into active hyper-focus has a similar mental exhileration. Once you find your zone it will be hard to break out of it. You will find yourself accomplishing incredible things.
When you do this, though, make sure you do it in a disciplined way or you will face some serious burnout. Don't do serious mental work more than five or six day a week. Force yourself to rest an entire day from any mental excercise. Also don't regularly work your brain that hard for more than 10 hours a day. It becomes addictive and like any other addiction, it will eat you for lunch.
I know. I burned myself out so bad once that I couldn't do any serious mental work for over a year. I had to maintain only, and that, not effectively. I nearly lost my job, etc., etc...
Intentionally play, just do it with moderation so that you can focus on the joys of accomplishment and fullfilment in your work as well. Work is a part of life. It can be quite fulfilling if it is balanced with rest, contemplation, play, and relationship. Balance your life. If one part starts to take over, make youself adjust it.
Hope this helps....
Feel free to contact me if you need some practical day-to-day help on this. It's a process, not a quick fix. Life always is...
--==-- I've found Karma to be a relative thing... Ya know, the kind you invite to Christmas...
Or try finding a local Internationa Folk dance (or square or contra or whatever) In My case it was rendance via the SCA. It will will get you out of the house and get your mind off of work, which is nice. In addition to getting your heart moving you may meet people. Hey I know more than one couple that are now married who met at a Dance practice or the like. And a very good friend of mine is dating a guy she met via Israeli folk dance.
No its not "Hi-Tech" but not everything has to be.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
I'm always astonished in discussions of ADD how little people know, and how much they have to say about it.
If you have a genetic or environmental cause for low reuptake of dopamine, your Exectutive Function - the name of area of the brain that, yes, instigates, organizes and executes - will be crippled. To a larger or lesser extent, but crippled nonetheless. Evidence that this is an inheritied condition was discovered at Brookhaven, only a few years ago, a glitch on one of the dopamine aelles.
It is perfectly possible to be unable to execute a single shred of all the good advice on this thread. I am hopeful of the day when psycholgy is no longer confused with functional brain conditions.
One of the most common misunderstandings about ADD comes from people who say, Hell, I'm not ADD, I can focus for hours and hours! Attention Deficit does not mean you cannot pay attention, it means that your ability to direct your own attention is not entirely volitional; your brain cannot organize itself. One is thus vulnerable to any strong pull in the environment, pleasant or un-. ADDers can hyperfocus like nobody's business - on something that interests them. And of life of endless interests minus the ability to shape and direct them is most definitely a circle of hell.
With just enough dopamine to keep distrability in check, the ability to hyperfocus can make for an Einstein, a Tolstoy; that enviable state of being in the Flow. But the Flow is yet another hell, when you can't do anything else. When your life is a combination of endless periods of Flow - and endless periods when you cannot *do* a single thing at all.
Small doses of amphetamines have the seemingly paradoxical effect of organizing the thoughts, of focusing the lens of the mind. No one can judge what it means to someone with ADD to be being able to focus at will, yet just about everybody does.
It means being able to set goals, to begin work, to end work. To accomplish what others take for granted. Which has, in other words, nothing to do with moral fibre at all.
As to those who brag about getting by on caffeine instead of those nasty drugs - sheer ignorance. Bragging about the ability to make emotional judgements when simple science stares you in the face. Coffee, for example, is a poor way to self-medicate, having detrimental affects on blood sugar and mood, to name only two. Whereas 10mg of Adderall XR provides mixed amphetatines salts. Clean dopamine.
These are not the opinions of one woman, and that is part of the point. It is simply a case of looking at things as they are.
When you peel away everything else, intelligent choices become clear.
I've found that you have to be in the "zone" to get work done. Sometimes sitting down to do work I can get stuff done, but rarely. I find that, and I read something about it (from Slashdot I believe) that you need to get your mind working on the task without distractions to get the creative juices flowing. And as long as the train of thought is unbroken you can get a lot done. I find that caffeine, classical or techno/trance music played through headphones works good for me. Sometimes other forms of music help as long as it's not to complex because you don't want it distracting you from thinking about the task at hand.
"Hard work never killed anyone." -- Some Dead Guy
your present 'work' or 'studies' are not of interest to you. what i suggest is that you change your major or field to coincide with whatever you dream about or really enjoy. by the way, if you continue with the present focus, your imagination will be submerged even more in the years ahead. branch out and focus on what you find most attractive.... then you find happiness and will not have to force your interest.
first: get rid of distraction. you said the internet was just a click away; so GET RID OF YOUR CONNECTIVITY when you need to get things done. If you use the internet for your work because you need email, restrict your connectivity to port 25.
start your day with some healthy exercising. a sound brain comes with a sound body.
Don't listen to music when at work; it'll only distract you.
Maybe you're suffering a mental disorder (lots of people do, whether they know it or not). Visit your doctor to be sure
less likely solution: Maybe some self-medication could help you too ! a collegue of me had a similar problem and solved it with amphetamin preparates (which is BAD for your health; I wouldn't recommend it to you !). But less hazardous drugs exist too ! just consult your doctor.
Troll ? Troll ? Where ? This isn't Tolkien !?!
r.
I wouldn't sit down to do the work, until I started getting worried about finnishing it. Yeah, I had many late nights, but instead of wasting my time the other nights I would do what I wanted to do (go out, watch tv, sleep, etc)
Now this may seem a bad attitude on it, but it worked for me. Instead of trying to work around my "preferred" system of getting work done, I just worked with it. Realize you're gonna be a slacker/procrasitinate, and plan accordingly.
and use some of that extra time you gain to catch up on the sleep ya lost!
--Keeping the flame wars alive, one post at a time